The field of this invention is that of condition responsive sensors and the invention relates more particularly to sensors which provide high precision but which are adapted to be manufactured at low cost for wide application in severe environments in automotive vehicles or the like to have long, reliable service lives in such environments.
The widest possible use of computers for performing highly sophisticated control functions has sometimes been retarded by the lack of availability of suitable sensors capable of furnishing correspondingly sophisticated and reliable control input to the computers. Sensors which have been available have tended to be relatively expensive to manufacture or to provide less than fully desirable levels of precision and reliability over suitably long service lives for many purposes. This is particularly true where such sensors have been considered for use in automotive applications and the like where the sensors might be subjected to severe environmental conditions.